Text 112, 97 rader
Skriven 2005-05-17 13:12:09 av Ardith Hinton (1:153/716.0)
     Kommentar till text 83 av James Bradley (1:134/77.0)
Ärende: People...  1A.
======================
Hi, James!  Awhile ago you wrote in a message to Ardith Hinton:

JB>  Sure, there are friends and relatives that you can tell
JB>  how you feel, but mostly decorum has one keeping it to
JB>  ones self.


           Uh-huh.  And one of the purposes of this echo is to be a place where
you can let it all hang out, if that's what you need to do....  :-)



JB>  If a friend is one of the later, they can be bad for
JB>  your own blood pressure, so you have to evaluate the
JB>  worth of their friendship.


           I hear what you're saying, but I'd put it a bit differently.  That's
because my reasoning style is different... not because I think you should do it
my way!  Please bear with me if I engage in "psychobabble" here....  :-))

           I'm an only child & a divergent thinker.  This means I've learned to
look inward for guidance.  I often find myself having to "translate" when other
people say things like "Only children are spoiled brats," for example.  I don't
think I'm a spoiled brat.  By the time I was in grade five & one of my teachers
said this in front of the whole class, I was able to say to myself "Oh, I guess
you come from a large family!"  Later on I noticed that a lot of people seem to
believe others have easier lives than they do.  And several weeks ago I finally
managed to get a certain individual to show me that... although she repeats the
same sentence in knee-jerk fashion, as others do with verses memorized from the
Bible... what she means is that she still feels resentful about something which
happened in her home town thirty years ago & which has *nothing to do with me*.
I can usually figure out what's really going on in such situations when I'm not
under too much stress, but when I'm struggling just to keep my head above water
I can't deal with it & it's not my nature to grade things unless I have to.  So
I'd be more inclined to say "This relationship isn't working for me right now."

           The advantage of saying the relationship isn't working for you right
now is twofold.  First, you're acknowledging & accepting responsibility for the
way you feel & recognizing that it's trying to tell you something.  Second, you
don't have to make any irrevocable decisions at the present time.  These people
must be able to relate to you in some ways & vice versa, otherwise you wouldn't
have been friends in the first place!  I see that the above individual tends to
look outward where I would look inward, for example, but she also seems to have
difficulty putting her feelings into words at times.  The latter is something I
can relate to.  One way & another I've been feeling I'm constantly under attack
from her... with some justification, I believe.  I don't think she's seeing me.
OTOH, she's just begun to tell me what's really bugging her & I missed a chance
to be supportive because I was upset about her inability to clue in to what I'd
been trying to say earlier.  Perhaps we both have some changes to make....  :-)



JB>  Shoot... Nobody wants to walk on egg shells, just
JB>  because some sorry sod can't take a hint.


           I'm very interested in your choice of metaphor there because some of
our other friends have used it too.  Looking at the situation from the point of
view of the eggshell, I'm tired of being stomped on!  I guess they've made some
progress if they can say "I don't like walking on eggshells" instead of telling
me I (should) feel a certain way.  Maybe what they're trying to tell me is that
I take offence easily, but they don't seem to realize I feel the same way about
them.  I don't like having to weigh every word any more than they do... (sigh).



JB>  I can be a handful too, so I don't expect everyone to
JB>  have a halo, just an openness to their own failings.


           Same here!  Your comments about egg shells & about the importance of
what a person does following Another D*mn Learning Experience reminded me of an
incident from my teens.  Our next door neighbour had hired somebody to bulldoze
the area where he wanted to put a septic tank, and my father was fit to be tied
because the man had taken out a surveyor's bench mark.  I wasn't present during
the ensuing conversation.  However, the thought strikes me that all of us screw
up sometimes & the bulldozer operator could have reacted in either of two ways:

 1)  He could have asked what a surveyor's bench mark was, if he didn't already
 know, and why it was important to my father.  He could have apologized for his
 ignorance and/or carelessness & resolved not to make the same error again.  He
 could have offered to make amends as best he could.  Or...

 2)  He could have pooled his own ignorance with that of his buddies, who would
 no doubt agree with him that the old geezer who got so uptight over a piece of
 rusty iron must be totally off his rocker, and then he needn't learn anything.


           I can forgive a lot when I don't have to be "wrong" so that somebody
else can be "right", and when other folks show me they care how I feel....  :-)




--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+
 * Origin: Wits' End, Vancouver BC, CANADA [604-266-5271] (1:153/716)